What is Negative SEO and what can it do?

Negative SEO has been a significant topic within the industry of online and digital marketing today because it is a serious problem. However, although many people have heard of this issue, not quite as many understand it. Negative SEO has been around for quite a while now, and it can be defined in a number of different ways. Generally, most people suggest that it is the practice of implementing black-hat techniques for SEO on another site. Often, SEO attacks may be launched by competitors who seek to reduce the search engine rankings of their competition.

In essence, negative SEO can be anything that would harm your brand reputation, traffic or visibility online.

Google’s Input

Most webmasters and marketers have expressed concerns about whether Google is taking the existence of negative SEO seriously. Matt Cutts, however, has released a statement suggesting that few people will actually use negative SEO, and even fewer will be successful in their goal.

What’s more, in 2012, Google released a webmaster tool that allows people to disavow or deny backlinks to their site. For example, if a webmaster is notified of unnatural links being posted on their site, or spam, then they will have the opportunity to disavow domains and links. This can help Google to address the problem at its root.

The Opinion of the Online Community

Although Google has made attempts to reassure the online community, there is still significant skepticism regarding the horror of negative SEO, and it’s potential to ruin a company’s online presence. In response to this, many SEO companies are attempting to educate the online community actively by providing articles on how to monitor negative SEO, and take measures against those who attempt it.

There are several ways to protect your website, and the first is setting up email alerts within your webmaster account so that all issues and information regarding your website is constantly kept to the front of your mind. Other strategies for preventing negative SEO can include removing suspicious backlinks, securing your website from hackers and malware, and monitoring the backlinks on your website.